


stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone

by ashlearose13



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Clintasha - Freeform, F/M, Natasha Needs a Hug, Protective Clint, clint is fixing it, natasha is losing it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-18
Updated: 2014-05-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 14:08:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1651412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashlearose13/pseuds/ashlearose13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She is struggling today and she might struggle for the rest of the week, but you know that this will not stop you from loving her. You cannot try to fix her demons. You can only help her survive them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone

**Author's Note:**

> i have never done anything on this website so i dont know what im doing really but oh well. this is something that had to come out of my mind somehow and its a bit of a hot mess. oh well. i hope you enjoy.

stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone

  
|

  
When you look at her you’re dazzled by the beauty of her, by the way she lives and breathes and exists, her life thrumming through her veins and pounding through your head.

  
You feel it when she’s standing next to you. You feel it when she’s halfway around the world.

  
You see violets under her eyes and sunsets on her lips, and even when she is growing sideways she is still growing, still fighting, still surviving, and it makes your head spin, the way she pushes through your skin and breaks your bones.

  
She makes you sad at the same time that she makes you happy, makes you angry at her when you’re laughing, twists your emotions in her hands and wrings them out in front of you. You don’t know what you have but you know that it is not love, that is has always intensified beyond that; love does not burn the way you burn for her.

  
She is sitting in front of you and could be made of marble if not for the crack in her face, her open mouth a chasm of stars, the Milky Way shining bright as she tries to wink at you. You copy her wink, mouth and all, your teeth gravestones against your lips.

  
She is caught in a rare moment of happiness, of aliveness, of exhilaration. When she laughs the sound rings deep in your chest, vibrating through your lungs and pulling your heart strings taught. The air leaves your body and you feel like you could drown in her.

  
“I feel the weight of all the lives I’ve ever lived on my shoulders and I don’t know who I am or if I am real or if I’m not real, not at all.” She pokes her tongue out, crosses her eyes, and you mirror her expression, relish in the way she makes you feel good when she feels lost.

  
A twitch of your finger against her bare leg. An anchor in the storm.

  
“You’re real.” You puff your cheeks, make kissy noises, watch the laughter erupt from her chest. She is not good at kissy noises in the way that you are not good at hearing. It is natural. She is natural.

  
“You know that, do you?” she asks, tugging her skin, leaving half moon crescents along her arms.

  
Of course you know she is real, because you feel her heart beating steadily into your own, feel her warmth seep into your bones. You know she will float away in the slightest breeze and then she will not be real, so you cling to her helplessly, your lighthouse.

  
“If I was not real you’d be loving empty space. No structure to me. A valley of nothingness” she says, and her sadness crashes over you all at once.

  
“I love you in languages that I don’t understand, with words that I’ve never heard before” you tell her and love is never the right thing to say, but you have nothing else. “I love you with every piece of my fucked up, shit hole of a heart.”

  
“I am not the type of person someone falls in love with.”

  
You know that she is the embodiment of danger, of mystery, of all the things you’re mother warned you of in the world, and you know that she wasn’t made for love, that love is a foreign feeling in her belly and most nights it keeps her awake.

  
When she crawls into your arms, drapes herself around your body and falls heavily into your chest, you keep her from floating away. You keep her with you, safe and out of harm’s way.

  
“I am not the type of person to fall in love with someone” you tell her, listening to her breaths, comparing them with your own. “But this real. Real times infinity.”

  
You are not good with words, not really, and you feel wrong saying things with no meaning to her. Infinity doesn't matter because you don’t have an infinity with her; you might only have a today and one more tomorrow left.

  
“I miss you and I miss you and I miss you” she whispers, words like whips against your heart. “All day when you’re away, and there is nothing else. I don’t depend on people because they leave. When you leave I don’t think anything will matter because without you I am not real.”

 

“I’m never leaving, Tasha” you vow, clutching her painfully to you, letting her feel you here in this moment.

  
She is struggling today and she might struggle for the rest of the week, but you know that this will not stop you from loving her. You cannot try to fix her demons. You can only help her survive them.

  
“I’ll buy you flowers and chocolate and a teddy, and we’ll be romantic for once, just pretend to be two kids discovering each other” you say, and then she’s moving; a ball of energy that falls onto the bed and explodes into a fabulous firework show. You watch her colours as she glares at you, suddenly all razor sharp edges and rage.

  
“I don’t want any of those fucking things. I want your teeth on my neck and your hands on my ass and I want you waking me up at 4am to tell me stupid fucking jokes with your stupid fucking sense of humour.” Her eyes burn, green and fresh, and she is your Tasha, your Nat, only Natasha and not a thousand other lives like she thinks.

  
When you kiss her she shares her entire universe, lets her Milky Way leave stars in your mouth, lets constellations drip from your lips, and she tells you, over and over, “I love you more than I miss you, Clint. I love you more than I miss you.”

  
You have saved her today, shown her what she lost sight of, and with a hand on either side of her head you map her body and feel things that you shouldn’t be lucky enough to feel. You are together in this moment, burning together, living together, surviving together. That is all that matters in the end.

  
And you, Clint Barton, know that this is the real she is looking for.


End file.
